This disclosure relates to tools having conformal cooling and a method for providing the same.
Moulds, such as those used in plastic injection moulding, are subject to significant heat during the injection moulding process. The moulds are cooled during injection moulding to cool the plastic part and improve cycle times.
Similarly, forming dies are subject to significant heat during metal forming processes. The dies are cooled during forming processes to cool the metal part and improve cycle times.
Over the years conformal cooling has been used to improve cooling by providing more uniform cooling of a part in a tool. A conformal cooling approach provides cooling passages that generally conform to or follow the contour of the manufactured part beneath the finished surface of a tool. Since the finished surface is of a generally complex shape, it is difficult to provide conformal cooling passages in the desired location. Typically, intersecting passages are gun-drilled into the tool, and then plugged at various locations, to provide the conformal cooling passages. Providing conformal cooling passages in this manner is undesirable due to the large expense, the difficulty in gun-drilling large tools (such as those used for vehicle bumpers), and the poor approximation of the conformal cooling passages to the finished mould surface.